Netaji’s letter to the Tokyo Boys. Picture courtesy Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Birthplace Museum

Cuttack, Feb. 27: The Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Birthplace Museum is set to display a rare letter written by Subhas Chandra Bose from Fukuoka in Japan on November 29, 1944.

In the letter Bose apologised to his “dear boys” (Tokyo cadets), who were to him “more than sons”, as he could not see them before leaving Nippon (Japan).

The letter was penned on paper that carried “Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind” — the provisional government of “Free India” — letterhead.

The letter that has not been exhibited before throws light on the emotional side of Netaji and his close relationship with the cadets in the Indian National Army and his commitment to “Bharat Mata”.

The Tokyo Cadets or the “Tokyo Boys”, as they were affectionately referred to, were a group of 35 youths belonging to the Indian National Army and who were sent to the Imperial Military Academy in Tokyo to train as fighter pilots in 1944. “The letter has been chemically treated and restored,” said Arundhati Mishra, the museum conservator and assistant curator.

“The letter was found among numerous, records, documents and photographs stacked in one of the rooms of Janaki Nath Bhavan,” the museum official told The Telegraph. Janakinath Bhavan is the ancestral home of Bose and is located in the city’s Oriya Bazaar. In 2003, the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Birthplace Museum Trust took over the two-storeyed mansion from Netaji Seva Sadan Trust Board to convert it into a memorial dedicated to Bose. The facelift to the building was part of a joint project of the Centre and the state government.

Meanwhile, higher education minister Samir Dey, who is a member of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Birthplace Museum Trust, has pitched a demand for documents related to Subhas Chandra Bose that were declassified by the central government recently.